Attack of the Biro
Stardate: 090612
Two more covers from my “massive”
mailshot have just dropped through the letterbox. Two envelopes with the Three
Crosses, Swansea first day cancel.
The envelopes were stamped and posted in Exeter
by a member of staff at the Bedford Street Branch on my behalf. My thanks to
the manager and staff there and at the other offices who have responded to my
mailshot request.
The receipts have the PO
oval that has been adopted as standard since the V2 software update. The address
has a minor variation from the normal. The first line has the street name in
lower case. The rest is in normal upper and lower case. The postcode has no gap
between the outward and inward parts of the postcode. The data is presented below in the same format as the tables in previous blogs
EX1
|
021519
|
K1 84953 Flag
K3 --------
|
Kiosk 1: First line of
address in lower case on receipt. Rest as normal. No space in the postcode
|
The big problem with the
envelopes occurred downstream from the post office and the special handstamp
centre. It probably happened in the “last mile”. Someone attacked the
faststamps with a biro!!!!
Royal Mail – You do a great job
and you have some wonderful staff but it is a pity that one or two let you
down. Unfortunately, that happens in many organisations – a lot of work and
excellent service by the many is let down by the odd one.
Under normal circumstances, this
would not be a problem. Most people would discard the envelope as its contents would
be the most relevant part of the item. For stamp collectors, the stamp and/or
the envelope are important. With normal first day covers, one can return the
cover and get a replacement. Normal stamps do not have an indication as to when
they were sold printed on them but faststamps do. A replacement from this
office and kiosk would have a session number in the order of 86000 plus given
that more than two weeks have since passed since the day of release whereas I
would estimate genuine first day items from this office to have session numbers
in the approximate range 84900 to 85000.
I started a number of websites to
document the usage of these Wincor-Nixdorf kiosks and to try to assist
collectors determine the validity of the items that they are being offered.
These websites are:
If you can help by filling in the
large gaps in data on each kiosk that has been used, either leave a comment on
this blog site or email me at pmechuk@gmail.com.
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